Hello Charles,

As a user experience designer if a feature is disabled it should not be present or there should be a way for user to know that it is disabled via hovering, warning labels, etc.

A quick fix would either be to remove the code that shows the button to IM or make the mouse pointer be not-allowed instead of pointer.

This will clear up some confusion and probably stop users searching for an answer while your team hammers out the IM functionality.

Hopefully you take my suggestion into consideration, thanks =)

Are there any Everquest players here?